Sleeping sickness is re-emerging

Human African trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, is a re-emerging public health problem in many parts of rural Africa. The protozoan Trypanosoma brucei is transmitted through the bite of a tetse fly, and the clinical signs of the first stages of the disease include fever, lymphadenopathy, and hepatomegaly. The second stage of the disease results in chronic encephalopathy, and patients eventually enter a terminal somnolent state, which gives the disease its name. Stich and colleagues (p 203) review the condition and say that the new epidemic can be controlled if the political will is there.

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